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Ebook Readers

J

Jon Davis

Well-Known Member
I've always been an avid reader of books.
I embraced ebooks from my first droid x.
I never found myself without a book to read when at loose ends in odd places. Willing enough to abandon my local library and spend money on books. I have both Nook & Amazon readers on my phones.
All was well with my life until I read about Steve Jobs illegal price fixing deal with the publishing industry.
Ebooks always have seemed more than a little pricey compared to normal book editions. Think about the costs to print and distribute a hard cover book. The costs associated with marketing an Ebook is relatively negligible.
Also every one charges the same price...
No sales like at the brick and mortar stores.
This morning I found that Ebook readers monitor and report back word by word all sorts of things about your reading. I have to assume that the software readers do the same thing. (source, Wall Street Journal)

I am not a very young person. All these things trouble me. What used to be a personal, enjoyable, and enlightening experience now finds me at the end of a tether being watched and guided like a dog. They know my political leanings, my religion, my philosophy, and so on. Extend that to many millions of readers.
I'm sure that these benevolent corporations would never sell this data to folks that manipulate public opinion but it could happen.
If these facts don't trouble you than I fear for the Republic.
 
Hi, Jon Davis! I have to agree with you. In an age where business dominates our governments and writes our laws, every technological advance offers business an opportunity to impose new restrictions on the public. Technologies that could have empowered us are used to chain us instead. Even one of these infringements makes these ebooks a step backward from printed books. We must reject ebooks that damage our freedom.The ebook companies say denying our traditional freedoms is necessary to continue to pay authors. The current copyright system supports those companies handsomely, and most authors badly. We can support authors better in other ways that don't require curtailing our freedom, and even legalize sharing.
 
Kindle and Nook Readers.
OOPS! SINCE ICS WE CAN NO LONGER UNINSTALL AMAZON KINDLE..

Look for me at the libraries and brick and mortar stores.
 
Use another reader. I use FB reader as I can find the path to the SD card far easier.

There is Project Gutenberg, which has most of the out of copyright classics in all genres for free - Feedbooks and Manybooks have others. There are various sites for Creative Commons licensed books. These might be trials by a new author, or the start of a series to see if it will get a following. I've collected over 200 science fiction books.

While pricey - O'Reilly does have some of its print books now in e-reader format.
Also Booksamillion and Obooko. Some of the Audubon Nature series are actually Android Apps, and good guidebooks.

I had a Nook, and had a real problem with B&N privacy. I won't use any proprietary tablets. You can get the Nook and Kindle apps for Android, and you should be able to uninstall them. Both Amazon and B&N probably know about rooting. (Voids warranty, but you can uninstall apps like Facebook)

I can get Sky and Telescope in e format from S&T. Waiting to see what Astronomy Mag will do.

Apple is being sued about price fixing ebooks. Kept the price artificially high.

While not books, the browser I use will save a web page as a PDF. This means that I can collect all the geology road logs and put them on the tablet.

I'm not averse to paying for a book, but I won't be locked in.

Hope this helps.
 
zuben el genub said:
Use another reader. I use FB reader as I can find the path to the SD card far easier.

There is Project Gutenberg, which has most of the out of copyright classics in all genres for free - Feedbooks and Manybooks have others. There are various sites for Creative Commons licensed books. These might be trials by a new author, or the start of a series to see if it will get a following. I've collected over 200 science fiction books.

While pricey - O'Reilly does have some of its print books now in e-reader format.
Also Booksamillion and Obooko. Some of the Audubon Nature series are actually Android Apps, and good guidebooks.

I had a Nook, and had a real problem with B&N privacy. I won't use any proprietary tablets. You can get the Nook and Kindle apps for Android, and you should be able to uninstall them. Both Amazon and B&N probably know about rooting. (Voids warranty, but you can uninstall apps like Facebook)

I can get Sky and Telescope in e format from S&T. Waiting to see what Astronomy Mag will do.

Apple is being sued about price fixing ebooks. Kept the price artificially high.

While not books, the browser I use will save a web page as a PDF. This means that I can collect all the geology road logs and put them on the tablet.

I'm not averse to paying for a book, but I won't be locked in.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the feedback. I agree about alternative reading sources. I have a generic reader, books from project Gutenberg and other places.
Would like to know about your source for science fiction works.
So many old detective books, Raymond Chandler, Dashiel Hammond, etc. Have somehow been re- copyrighted.
I will check out the open libraries for new authors.
Anyone else have links to good reading material?
Jon
 
Tor, Baen, Manybooks, Obooko.
Cory Doctorow is exclusively Creative Commons. He's still writing so new books would be available. Drew Wagnar has a really good Creative Commons series.

Double Dragon ebooks is another. There are a couple of places that sell mostly Creative Commons license, but the books are usually under $5, which is reasonable. I found Booksamillion cheaper than Amazon or B&N.

I haven't checked out the mystery books.

The road logs are usually from National Parks .gov. It's just easier to manage a tablet than change books.
 
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